Move /home partition

[leonchik1976]

I don't have separate /home partition, and running out of space, so i want to move it to another drive, and make this /home partition.
Is enough to perform "mv -r * new partition", and then mount a new partition as /home, or it's a more than this?

[NeddySeagoon]

leonchik1976,

It takes a bit of care because /home must not be in use. Any open files will not be copied correctly.
To make sure home is not in use log in as root directly. Logging in as a normal user requires /home to be in use.

To be safe issue the sync command then remount /home as read only. If that fails, there are files open on home.
Mount the replacement home somewhere, say /mnt/newhome
cp -a the old to the new.

You can't use mv with /home being ro.
To keep your sanity,

Code: Select all

touch /mnt/newhome/newhome

so you can tell the two different /homes apart.

unmount /mnt/newhome anh mount it over the top of the existing home.
Log is as a normal user and you should have a /home/newhome file.
If everything works, update /etc/fstab then reboot to test. /home/newhome should still be there.

Run like that for a few days, then you can delete the content of the old /home.
Before you issue the rm command do check that newhome is missing.

If you use mv directly and it fails for any reason, it leaves you in a mess.
The above process is safer because its non destructive until the result is tested.
You have backups anyway, don't you?

[leonchik1976]

leonchik1976,

It takes a bit of care because /home must not be in use. Any open files will not be copied correctly.
To make sure home is not in use log in as root directly. Logging in as a normal user requires /home to be in use.

To be safe issue the sync command then remount /home as read only. If that fails, there are files open on home.
Mount the replacement home somewhere, say /mnt/newhome
cp -a the old to the new.

You can't use mv with /home being ro.
To keep your sanity,

Code: Select all

touch /mnt/newhome/newhome

so you can tell the two different /homes apart.

unmount /mnt/newhome anh mount it over the top of the existing home.
Log is as a normal user and you should have a /home/newhome file.
If everything works, update /etc/fstab then reboot to test. /home/newhome should still be there.

Run like that for a few days, then you can delete the content of the old /home.
Before you issue the rm command do check that newhome is missing.

If you use mv directly and it fails for any reason, it leaves you in a mess.
The above process is safer because its non destructive until the result is tested.
You have backups anyway, don't you?

yes, will try it, thanks

[figueroa]

Just restore /home from a fresh backup to the new partition. Then, when not logged in as a user, rename your existing /home and mount your new /home. Don't actually delete your old home until you are happy with your new home.

If you don't have a fresh backup of /home, you are living too dangerously and also unwisely.

Alternatively, analyze what in your /home directory is taking up too much space. Leave the home directory intact, and just move the Photos, Movies, Audio, your Wife, other Users etc to an alternate partition and create a symlink or symlinks from the /home directory location to the new alternate location.

For example, I keep about half of my personal /home directory files in alternate directories in /scratch/. For my convenience, these are symlinked from my real /home directories. Best example is /scratch/Downloads is the real directory and the symlink is /home/USERNAME/Downloads. Adjust to suit your needs and situation.

At home and on supported remote systems, all user's home directories are backed up automatically, overnight, weekly, and monthly, in rotating files to both secondary hard drives and those backups are further copied to a server from which off-site copies are made weekly. Not perfect, but better than most. Business critical files are backed up off-site nightly.